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Food Thread!

Because I'm always hungry. Or, it's just my passion. Or both.

So, I read this article again and got me thinking "Hey! How about I try that out?". Cooking poached eggs doesn't look so easy to me but one particular method involves a cling film and some olive oil, which sounds ridiculously easy. Oil the film, put an egg on top, tie it up and dump it in the pot for a few minutes and done! A poached egg. But, did it work out for me? Well... sorta. Sometimes it wasn't cooked enough, and sometimes I overcooked the damned thing till it becomes just a regular boiled egg. Practice makes perfect, eh?

On a side note, if anyone's in Malaysia and craving for a bowl of Tom Yum, somewhere between the borders of Malaysia and Thailand serves the best kind. A perfect blend of sweetness, sourness, spiciness and prawns in a bowl. Or, you could just go to Thailand and get a bowl of one. The best Tom Yum is served there, or so I heard.

The poached egg clingfilmthing does work, just keep a close eye on them.

Armadillo Egg - (BBQ Shack, Worlds End pub, Brighton) Take a jalapeno chilli pepper and fill it with cream cheese, wrap the chilli in spicy sausage meat until it is about the size of a fist, then wrap this in smoky bacon. Cook then serve in a bun with extra jalapeno's. Awesome stuff. They also do the best pulled pork Quesadillas...

Sadly I misread the order of instructions (and didn't think about what I'd read, if I had even a fool like me would have realised I'd mis-read it) and started cooking the fish before putting into patties so after hastily scrunching some together in the pan I ended up with four tiny fishcakes and a load of fish-and-stuff-mush. That said, it was all very tasty and I intend to try them again at some point.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

I've tried that clingfilm method before and must admit it failed miserably - woefully undercooked - to the point I haven't tried since

Over the weekend I did try cooking scrambled eggs for the first time ever. Was quite nice but I realized I'd rather be eating fried and scrambled are a bit of a faff

In the last 6 months or so I've found a bit of a love for baking, have made some delicious cookies and muffins and at least when I'm naughty and eat most of them the same day I feel a bit more like I earned it!

I always cooked scrambled eggs in the microwave, I imagine that's cheating.

If you want to do something that sounds and tastes impressive, but is actually really easy and cheap, learn to roast vegetables, it's only a matter of timing. And best of all any left overs can be put in a curry, sounds odd, tastes amazing.

Another great thing to try is Brisket; chuck it in the oven for 4 hrs on Sunday afternoon with some wine, onion, carrots and stock and you'll have yourself not only a great meal for that night, but the next few days as well!

My wife took the baby to visit family this week so that means I get to cook all the stuff I want that she wouldn't touch, plus have a little more thinking and resting time to do long-form cooking. Had a roast chicken from Walmart (pretty good) then took the bones and made my first chicken stock. It turned out aces. I was reading about chicken stock later on and this one cook was saying how her first attempts didn't go well. She said the sign of a good stock is that it turns into a solid, gelatinous blob in the fridge. Well, mine did.

Used that stock to make a french onion soup. Topped it with some french bread and what cheese I had on hand under the broiler. It was almost very good, except used too much olive oil when caramelizing the onions. The soup ended up almost greasy, though the bread and cheese and flavor were quite nice.

Also, bought some chicken and apple sausage last week. I was surprised by how tasty it was when I ate it last night. I think I'd prefer it over smoked turkey sausage. Cooked up some broken Jasmine rice in a cilantro bouillon with dried cranberries and sunflower seeds. Not bad but wasn't flavorful enough. Added some cayenne and that helped a little. Ate it all with a Claussen spicy pickle. Mixed up some Plochman's yellow mustard with honey and fish sauce for the sausage's dip. A moderate success.

Another great thing to try is Brisket; chuck it in the oven for 4 hrs on Sunday afternoon with some wine, onion, carrots and stock and you'll have yourself not only a great meal for that night, but the next few days as well!

Scrambled eggs are perhaps my speciality. My mum always makes them in the microwave, which upon my return home I attempted to show her the error of. Turns out the pans at home aren't non-stick, whereas the ones I have in my student digs are. Half an hour of scraping egg off the bottom of the pan later, I conceded that she may have a point.

I'm not really a fan of fried eggs - I'd rather have scrambled or poached in a cooked breakfast, and I've never successfully poached an egg.

French onion soup sounds tasty. I make tomato and greek lemon from scratch all the time, might have to try that one as well.

She's not vegetarian, but she grew up with a very limited diet of white rice, ice chips, chicken, cereal, Colombian appetizers, legumes, ice cream, and candy. We've made great headway with opening up her palate over the years. But while I like spicy foods and savory meats, she likes nothing better than bland, bland, bland. She could make three meals out of bread alone. And there are some foods she just does not want to try. Her parents never introduced seafood so she has no interest now - same with pork. I'll eat a far wider range of vegetables than she will. I'm much more likely to order something new, she's more likely to order something she knows is safe. Different paradigms.

The recipe I followed for the french onion soup is here. I cut the recipe in about a third, used chicken stock instead of the classic beef, substituted white cooking wine and white onions, and finished with some bagged, shredded mozzarella provolone mix on top. And it still turned out great, except that I'd put in way too much olive oil. Will try again.

Regarding the fried-rice-in-egg thing, I haven't had that but I have had a sort of stir-fry omelette which was delicious. Just a bog-standard stir fry (though obviously you could add whatever you wanted, my only real addition was chilli) in an omelette. It was delicious.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

That's a favourite lunch of mine. Fry up some peas, spring onion and bean sprouts, then crack in 2 or 3 eggs. I eat it with soy sauce and Encona beacuse I'm hooked on the stuff.

The best Encona sauce is the Barbados-style creole one. My boss in a previous job bought everyone in our department a bottle of the real stuff when he went on vacation to Barbados, and it was delicious.